The Nazi Propaganda feature on the BBC's History website is written by Professor David Welch (last updated 2009) and features six posters with (very good) explanatory notes.
The History Learning Site has a useful page on propaganda which lists the reasons why the Nazis needed to give propaganda so much importance in the regime: could use this as the basis of a spread featuring a spider diagram with Goebbels in the middle and the things he needed propaganda to do for the regime, and how they did it, around him.
Wikipedia has a good article on Nazi propaganda (which looks very much like it was the basis for some of the History Learning SIte (or vice versa) and it includes some public domain images for posters. It also includes some links to other sites, including:
The German Propaganda Archive , written/collated/edited by Randall Bytwerk (bytw@calvin.edu). Bytwerk is Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA) and is the author of, amongst others, 'Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic', which looks very good. Bytwerk says on this site that he is happy to explain things on the archive if people need him to. There is a lot of excellent material here, both visual and textual. Particularly good on posters , images of Hitler , on Nuremberg rallies and smaller rallies, the threat of communism, on the humour magazine's response to complainers (in the postcard section): this would be good feature, and education materials - and economic changes .
I'd like to use this image of Hitler from rear surveying his massed supporters: could illustrate topic on Hitler as supremo
Notes from Nazism 1919-1945 volume 2: State, Economy and Society 1933-1939 A Documentary Reader edited by J. Noakes and G. Pridham, University of Exeter Press, 2000
p. 187
Goebbels describes the role of his new Reich Ministry of Popular Entertainment and Propaganda in a press conference on 15 March 1933:
‘…I view the first task of the new Ministry as being to establish coordination between the Government and the whole people. If this Government is determined never and under no circumstances to give way, then it has no need of the lifeless power of the bayonet, and in the long run will not be content with 52 per cent behind it and with terrorizing the remaining 48 per cent, but will see its most immediate task as being to win over that remaining 48 per cent.’
It is the duty of the government’s leaders ‘to tell the masses what they want and put it across to the masses in such a way as they understand it too.’
p.192
‘On 25 March [1933] Goebbels told the Controllers of German radio the role he envisaged for the medium under the new regime:
“I am placing a major responsibility in your hands for you have in your hands the most modern instrument in existence for influencing the masses. By means of this instrument you are the creators of public opinion. If you carry this out well we shall win over the people and if you do it badly in the end the people will once more desert us…”’
‘…The regime placed great emphasis on the encouragement of community radio listening in factories, offices, cafés etc. This was not simply in order to reach those who did not possess a radio at home but also because it was believed that the impact of rallies and speeches broadcast on radio would be greater if they were listened to in public where people would be more suggestible than in their familiar home surroundings. Thus, the local paper in Neu-Isenburg near Frankfurt announced on 16 March 1934:
“Attention! The Führer is speaking on the radio. On Wednesday 21 March, the Führer is speaking on all German stations from 11.00 to 11.50 am. According to a regulation of the Gau headquarters, the district Party headquarters has ordered that all factory owners, department stores, offices, shops, pubs, and blocks of flats put up loudspeakers an hour before the broadcast of the Führer’s speech so that the whole workforce and all national comrades can participate fully in the broadcast. The district headquarters expects this order to be obeyed without exception so that the Führer’s wish to speak to his people can be implemented.”’
p.199
In his 15 March 1933 press conference, Goebbels also spelled out his view of the relationship between the press and the Government:
‘You need not be afraid of making statements with obvious bias. There is nothing unbiased in the world. Anything unbiased is sexless and thus worthless. Everything has a bias whether acknowledged or concealed. In my view it is better for us to acknowledge our bias rather than conceal it. There is no absolute objectivity.’
p.200
extract from a daily press conference of the Propaganda Ministry:
‘The Propaganda Ministry asks us to put to editors-in-chief [of newspapers] the following requests, which must be observed in future with particular care:
Photos showing members of the Reich Government at dining tables in front of rows of bottles must not be published in future, particularly since it is known that a large number of the Cabinet are abstemious. Ministers take part in social events for reasons of international etiquette and for strictly official purposes, which they regard merely as a duty and not as a pleasure. Recently, because of a great number of photos, the utterly absurd impression has been created among the public that members of the Government are living it up. News pictures must therefore change in this respect.’
p.204: The Nazis made it law that people working in a particular industry, including the arts, had to belong to the Nazi-orientated association of that industry. ‘Unsuitable’ people – i.e. Jews and other undesirables and people associated with political parties the Nazis disapproved – were not allowed to be members. And anyone who did get to be a member who then did something out of line would be thrown out of the association – and would lose their job and career.
The History Learning Site has a useful page on propaganda which lists the reasons why the Nazis needed to give propaganda so much importance in the regime: could use this as the basis of a spread featuring a spider diagram with Goebbels in the middle and the things he needed propaganda to do for the regime, and how they did it, around him.
Wikipedia has a good article on Nazi propaganda (which looks very much like it was the basis for some of the History Learning SIte (or vice versa) and it includes some public domain images for posters. It also includes some links to other sites, including:
The German Propaganda Archive , written/collated/edited by Randall Bytwerk (bytw@calvin.edu). Bytwerk is Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA) and is the author of, amongst others, 'Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic', which looks very good. Bytwerk says on this site that he is happy to explain things on the archive if people need him to. There is a lot of excellent material here, both visual and textual. Particularly good on posters , images of Hitler , on Nuremberg rallies and smaller rallies, the threat of communism, on the humour magazine's response to complainers (in the postcard section): this would be good feature, and education materials - and economic changes .I'd like to use this image of Hitler from rear surveying his massed supporters: could illustrate topic on Hitler as supremo
This poem about Hitler is also good
See here for fonts .
Notes from Nazism 1919-1945 volume 2: State, Economy and Society 1933-1939 A Documentary Reader edited by J. Noakes and G. Pridham, University of Exeter Press, 2000
p. 187
Goebbels describes the role of his new Reich Ministry of Popular Entertainment and Propaganda in a press conference on 15 March 1933:
‘…I view the first task of the new Ministry as being to establish coordination between the Government and the whole people. If this Government is determined never and under no circumstances to give way, then it has no need of the lifeless power of the bayonet, and in the long run will not be content with 52 per cent behind it and with terrorizing the remaining 48 per cent, but will see its most immediate task as being to win over that remaining 48 per cent.’
It is the duty of the government’s leaders ‘to tell the masses what they want and put it across to the masses in such a way as they understand it too.’
p.192
‘On 25 March [1933] Goebbels told the Controllers of German radio the role he envisaged for the medium under the new regime:
“I am placing a major responsibility in your hands for you have in your hands the most modern instrument in existence for influencing the masses. By means of this instrument you are the creators of public opinion. If you carry this out well we shall win over the people and if you do it badly in the end the people will once more desert us…”’
‘…The regime placed great emphasis on the encouragement of community radio listening in factories, offices, cafés etc. This was not simply in order to reach those who did not possess a radio at home but also because it was believed that the impact of rallies and speeches broadcast on radio would be greater if they were listened to in public where people would be more suggestible than in their familiar home surroundings. Thus, the local paper in Neu-Isenburg near Frankfurt announced on 16 March 1934:
“Attention! The Führer is speaking on the radio. On Wednesday 21 March, the Führer is speaking on all German stations from 11.00 to 11.50 am. According to a regulation of the Gau headquarters, the district Party headquarters has ordered that all factory owners, department stores, offices, shops, pubs, and blocks of flats put up loudspeakers an hour before the broadcast of the Führer’s speech so that the whole workforce and all national comrades can participate fully in the broadcast. The district headquarters expects this order to be obeyed without exception so that the Führer’s wish to speak to his people can be implemented.”’
p.199
In his 15 March 1933 press conference, Goebbels also spelled out his view of the relationship between the press and the Government:
‘You need not be afraid of making statements with obvious bias. There is nothing unbiased in the world. Anything unbiased is sexless and thus worthless. Everything has a bias whether acknowledged or concealed. In my view it is better for us to acknowledge our bias rather than conceal it. There is no absolute objectivity.’
p.200
extract from a daily press conference of the Propaganda Ministry:
‘The Propaganda Ministry asks us to put to editors-in-chief [of newspapers] the following requests, which must be observed in future with particular care:
Photos showing members of the Reich Government at dining tables in front of rows of bottles must not be published in future, particularly since it is known that a large number of the Cabinet are abstemious. Ministers take part in social events for reasons of international etiquette and for strictly official purposes, which they regard merely as a duty and not as a pleasure. Recently, because of a great number of photos, the utterly absurd impression has been created among the public that members of the Government are living it up. News pictures must therefore change in this respect.’
p.204: The Nazis made it law that people working in a particular industry, including the arts, had to belong to the Nazi-orientated association of that industry. ‘Unsuitable’ people – i.e. Jews and other undesirables and people associated with political parties the Nazis disapproved – were not allowed to be members. And anyone who did get to be a member who then did something out of line would be thrown out of the association – and would lose their job and career.